


dangling in limbo

by orphan_account



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, grantaire and eponine are childhood best friends and its what matters most to me, this is sad sad sad sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-28 16:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10834857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Grantaire wants to scream his lungs out, wants to get mad at the world for not giving him answers. Instead, he gets drunk with Eponine in a bar downtown and cries a little because he wants to stop being someone’s trial run before the real thing. (She laughs at this and counts as the seconds slowly decrease on her own wrist.)“Fuck timers!” She yells over the music.“Fuck soulmates!” He nods with a sad smile. Everyone else in the bar cheers with them, their wrists up to show various numbers, each of them waiting, waiting, waiting.(Soulmate AU where people get timers that count down to the moment they meet their soulmate)





	dangling in limbo

**Author's Note:**

> so the gist of this is that anyone can get a timer on their wrist at any age and if your soulmate also has one, you both have the countdown but if your soulmate doesn't get one, it stays blank until they decide to get one.
> 
> (you can search for the movie timer if it's still confusing!!) i hope u enjoy <3

He doesn't believe in the promise of soulmates, of fate and destiny.

Moreso, many would argue Grantaire doesn't really believe in much anyway. He yells of cynicisms and fallacies, of disbeliefs and tragedy in the face of light. Many would call it a shame - such intelligence dwindled into proving wrongs instead of attempts at righting them but at this he shrugs.

The concept of timers is still lost to him. For a long while, he tries to grasp the idea but instead comes up short. He recalls the gleaming line on his mother's wrist counting down to twenty years and the long string of men in their home as she waits, waits, and waits for the moment the timer will click and tell her it's time. (It never comes. She gets it removed five years before it's the deadline, all her patience finally simmering and giving way. She's happier now, she tells him but there is a kind of sadness in the tone of her voice he wishes he understood.)

In a different context, he supposes he should understand. It's science after all and he's never been down to turn his back on facts.

But science and soulmates are things that shouldn't make sense, things he refuses to associate. Love? Is it not just something we feel because our bodies react the way they do? Timers couldn't predict soulmates the same way Grantaire could predict weather. Still, he tries to believe it could work even when the concept baffles him to no end.

He grows up in his small bedroom, a mess of boyhood and forgotten hobbies. (He tries soccer when he's nine. There's a small aquarium that will house sea monkeys and then fighting fish and then finally a pet gecko. Hockey sticks that he uses once in high school. Posters from all the phases of life he goes through - the one constant is a David Bowie one he prays to when nights begin to feel heavier)

At sixteen, he lies down on the on the floor of his bedroom as he smokes stolen cigarettes with his best friend (Someone more constant than David Bowie.) still wondering of timers and destiny. Their wrists remain free of the constant ticking that seem to invade everyone else's lives or the blank slate that haunts those that aren't as lucky. (Are they alone? Is their soulmate dead?)

"Your parents got their timers right so that must mean something, right?" He asks, watching the hazy smoke from his lips dance in the sunlight. Eponine sits up at this question and ties her messy tresses into a bun - a habit of hers when she doesn't like a topic.

She laughs bitterly, taking a minute before she answers, "They're both fucked up so I guess that means they got it right."

Grantaire thinks about this for a moment. What is real love if it destroys things in its wake? Aren't soulmates supposed to be good for each other? There are words on the tip of his tongue that he cannot say. He watches as Eponine avoids his gaze and looks up at the ceiling, as if his fake glow in the dark stars cast real galaxies in the darkness. "Fuck soulmates, Ep." is what he says instead.

"Fuck timers." She nods quietly. "Would have saved the world some bullshit if my parents never met because of 'em."

"Nah." Grantaire laughs. "I can't think of a world without you."

She shoots him a look but smiles anyway. He holds on to this conversation until he gets older, clings to the idea that there's someone else out there who understands him.

\---

It changes after Marius.

He is everything Grantaire doesn't understand, something he and Eponine do not know. He is wealth and sweetness, naïveté and kindness - a boy yet to see the world. Eponine falls in love with freckles and ginger hair, of gangly limbs and awkward stutters. Marius gives her hope but not love and yet clings on to him even when he constantly, constantly watches until his blank timer clicks and tells him his yes, his soulmate does exist.

Grantaire kind of understands, she clings on to the first thing that doesn't remind her of a shitty home and dark things and he isn't one to tell her no.

She gets a timer when she turns eighteen with hopes of Marius' seconds meeting up with hers. Grantaire holds her hand through the process and smiles when it comes to life. It lights up to tell her she's destined to be with someone else fifteen years in the future. There is silence before she speaks, the seconds tick on her wrist but to Grantaire, it seems as if time stops. He feels heavy for her and thinks of his mother's own twenty years.

"Well," Eponine says evenly. "That saves me a little bit of trouble."

Grantaire squeezes her hand. "Does it hurt?" He doesn't mean her wrist.

"Not at all." She refuses to look him in the eyes. He understands.

Marius' timer lights up the same day. He calls Eponine that night asking her if it had been her but she hangs up before he could finish speaking. ("I'm not wasting my time on that,"  She tells Grantaire after too many shots of tequila. "That's not funny anymore when you've got a fucking fifteen year deadline huh?") Marius meets Cosette a week later and Eponine deletes him from her contacts.

\---

For a while it's fun. He learns of everyone's obsession with timers and studies it carefully even when a part of him aches for some kind of comfort that perhaps he can fight fate. In a world that revolves around minutes and seconds, Grantaire desperately wishes to hold on to a life that isn't just waiting.

But even so, he tries to play along. He buys fake timers to stick on his wrists, hoping to understand what it feels like to be a part of a society that dangles in limbo before their life clicks into place. Some nights, his wrist will say thirty hours, some days it'll tick for thirty years. (Someone tells him he's lucky to know he'll live that long. He grins at this, shoots them finger guns, and walks off feeling a little bit guilty.) He doesn't understand, still. He doubts he ever will.

Eventually, it becomes a game. The most vulnerable people are always the ones with little time left. His bed is always warm but rarely for long.

Floreal is the one who keeps it warm enough, for a while it all feels like a kind of fever dream. A blank timer and ink stains cover her arms like vines that he traces with his fingertips absentmindedly. With her, he forgets the intricacies of life and numbers.

"Why did you get one?" He asks as they're tangled together in a sea of sheets and limbs. Floreal thinks, tapping the little empty rectangle as she does. (He can't help but think about how those taps should fit the steady rhythm of seconds that she desperately wishes to hear but he doesn't say anything)

Finally, she smiles at him. "There's comfort in certainty." He doesn't understand.

Despite this, she tells him she believes in controlling her own destiny and a time of just the two of them. He’s okay with that even just for a while.

He catches her sometimes in the mornings, checking if her wrist had lit up in her slumber, while she was held by someone not meant for her. He doesn’t say anything but he desperately wishes to give her answers. He loves her enough to consider getting a timer himself, hoping that somehow the silence of hers is for his own ticks to fill. He runs before he even gets too close to the timer store.

Grantaire wonders for so long if living idly is worth the soulmate. She forgets their rhythm when she is given her own precious seconds to count, stops trying to find control once her deadline is given. Floreal's future begins eating away their relationship, he kisses her goodbye a year before she's destined for someone else and tells Eponine he needs a fucking drink.

The days and months begin to blur into counting down until someone has to kiss him goodbye.

\---

He meets Courfeyrac in college and drags him to some kind of club. There are meetings about social justice and changing, of prejudices and fighting them. Grantaire doesn't understand them, doesn't see the point of any of them.

He goes to the meetings for Enjolras.

Perhaps it is the absence of numbers on his own timer that makes Enjolras believe in change. Like Floreal, Enjolras attempts to fill his own silence with a rhythm of his own. To Grantaire, the presence of a timer on his wrist leaves him with a big question mark. Still, he sits and argues with Enjolras during these meetings – trying to fill some kind of hole inside him that he doesn’t mean to dig into deeper and deeper. (Perhaps, he decides one meeting, he finally understands Eponine’s fondness for Marius all those years ago.) He isn’t sure if it’s the familiarity of him that gives him butterflies but he doesn’t like it. He flashes back to hoping for someone’s love and being left as soon as her time starts.

He waits, waits, and waits for numbers to show up on Enjolras’ timer and hates him even more as he grows impatient. (He doesn’t want to make the mistake of believing another empty timer is for him to match) There is yelling, there are facts, there are words thrown that neither of them actually mean, and useless debates that Grantaire finds he doesn’t really care much for. Yet each time, he catches himself only wanting more and more despite the fact that he does so to create a distance between himself from the eventual separation that time will give him.

“What’s the fucking point?” Grantaire says one night, a little drunk as he walks towards Enjolras who is fixing his things. Another meeting, another argument, and more words, words, words. He tries to catch the timer but Enjolras pulls at his sleeves as if he’s aware it’s the reason why Grantaire is there.

“Of what?” He asks, raising an eyebrow. Grantaire thinks he looks tired. He knows that look, it’s the same one that greets him every morning, it’s the same look Eponine has after another hook-up. He looks so much younger up close and so much more vulnerable. Grantaire can’t help but hate him for making his chest ache, for giving him sadness he had once thought were only for people with timers.

He forgets what he’s supposed to say. Instead, he grabs Enjolras’ wrist and looks at the blank timer. (A weight is lifted for some reason.) “Why do you have one?” A constant question but there are no constant answers.

Enjolras is taken aback but he shoots Grantaire a glare. “It’s none of your business.”

“It is.” He smiles. “I never took you for the type. Thought you’d be metaphorically married to justice or something.”

Enjolras answers with a roll of his eyes, a typical thing where Grantaire is involved. “You’re drunk.”

“That I am.” They stand in silence before Grantaire slumps to the floor and runs his finger through his mess of curls. “I’m sorry.” He means it but he doesn’t know what else to say. (He’s sorry timers have fucked up his views on forming relationships, he’s sorry he’s always been a kind of trial run to everyone else, he’s sorry he’s such a dick all the time, he’s sorry the reason why he doesn’t believe in soulmates is because he’s pretty damn sure he doesn’t have one, he’s sorry Enjolras has to put up with him, he’s sorry Enjolras’ soulmate is an idiot for not getting a timer and they’re wasting all their time living a life without the other boy’s fire.)

“You don’t have one.” Enjolras points out.

“I don’t need one.”

“Why?” It’s a genuine question.

“It’s weird living in a world where everyone else depends on those things to want to make a connection.” Grantaire says, sighing. “If we didn’t have those, people would make more effort to get to know other people because they aren’t sure if someone’s meant to be in their life.”

“That’s a valid thought.” The other boy nods. “Although I think people prefer it this way because it perhaps saves them the heartache.”

“Is that why you have one?”

Enjolras studies him as if he’s trying to figure out if Grantaire is teasing or not. He doesn’t answer. Instead, he grabs his things and leaves. “Goodnight, R. Call Eponine and tell her to pick you up.” Grantaire sits in the darkness for a little while until a janitor asks him to go.

It doesn’t get easier after that.

\---

Courfeyrac’s wrist bears a small scar, the only remembrance of where a timer once ticked. He likes to joke that he and Combeferre never needed it, he had sworn the latter was the love of his life even before getting timers crossed his mind. Grantaire stares at it sometimes, questions burning as he does. Courfeyrac obliges with answers but they’re never the ones he wants to hear.

“It felt the same after I found out.” Courf answers when asked what if felt like when the seconds had reached zero. “I guess it’s because I knew all along. I mean, Ferre and I already knew each other before getting the timers so that’s probably why.”

Grantaire wants to scream his lungs out, wants to get mad at the world for not giving him answers. Instead, he gets drunk with Eponine in a bar downtown and cries a little because he wants to stop being someone’s trial run before the real thing. (She laughs at this and counts as the seconds slowly decrease on her own wrist.)

“Fuck timers!” She yells over music.

“Fuck soulmates!” He nods with a sad smile. Everyone else in the bar cheers with them, their wrists up to show various numbers, each waiting, waiting, waiting.

\---

He waxes poetics of negation and pessimism but underneath it all, what Grantaire wants is to understand what it's like to have hope.

Under a willow tree somewhere in campus, he hides away and smokes. For a while, the lines blur and the noises fade - despite the soundless seconds, it's almost deafening to watch the silent timers.

... _five, four, three, two, one, zero. sixty, fifty-nine.._.

Even when he closes his eyes sometimes, he still sees the glowing lines - haunting him in a way. Still, it doesn't stop him from attempting to forget just for a little bit. (The keyword is attempt. He’s rarely ever successful.)

There is a familiar figure in the distance, even through the curtain of leaves, he can make out the tall figure of a fearless leader. His stride has become unmistakable – tall and certain, proud and confident. Quickly and without thinking, Grantaire calls out to him with a wave. "Enjolras!"

He pauses as if he’s thinking about indulging Grantaire. Enjolras looks at him curiously before walking closer. "Yes?"

"Sit." He says, patting the space next to him. Enjolras hesitates but obliges, his features painted with questions he will not ask as he makes himself comfortable on the grass.

"Please don't smoke." is all he says after a while. Grantaire puts out the cigarette, grinning as he does. Out of habit, he checks for the timer and smiles to himself to find it still blank.

"Class?" Grantaire asks, looking everywhere else but at Enjolras. He's aware of the close proximity - the closest they've been since they've first met. It makes him nervous and he doesn't know why. (What an idiot, he thinks. He’d been the one to invite him to sit, what the fuck was he nervous?)

On his part, Enjolras nods. "Just finished... you?"

"Later." And then it's quiet again. It brings him back to days with Eponine on his floor, to simpler moments before timers and destiny. Enjolras isn't Eponine - he knows not of the world of stolen candy bars and broken homes, of fists and knives and dirty work but strangely, Grantaire is comforted by his presence. Even with his possibility with someone else, with the blank timer, Grantaire forgets about all of it just for a while. "People are always in a rush.”

“The world doesn’t stop for anyone, R.” _Correction_ , he wants to quip, _Enjolras_ doesn’t _stop for anyone_.

Instead, he lets out an amused laugh. “It’s just time.” He says. “At the end of the day, we’re all just following numbers.” His fingertips pick at some grass blades, tearing them slowly in an attempt to distract himself. (He wants to trace lines on Enjolras’ skin, find flaws hidden beneath his surface) “Everyone needs to take a breath at some point.”

Enjolras looks as if he considers this. “You shouldn’t take too many.” It’s so soft that Grantaire isn’t sure if he hears it right. “You’re going to miss things if you keep watching everyone else.”

“Let’s not argue today, fearless leader.” There are so many things he wants to say, so many defences he wants to put up, but under that willow tree Grantaire lets go of everything else and waits as Enjolras takes his breath. A rare smile presents itself and Grantaire decides then that this is one of those rare occurrences when time once again stops for him.

\---

Eponine tends at a bar near campus – a small dingy place where Montparnasse sells weed in the back alley and they let Grantaire the vandalize the bathroom walls with shitty graffiti (His best work by far is a doodle of Parnasse and Gav as Sailor Moon and her cat.) There are constant jokes of how convenient it must be for Grantaire to have someone supply his persistent need to fill himself with alcohol, of how easy it must be for Eponine to find meet new strangers to share a bed with at night – there are deeper meanings beneath the playful jokes but their friendship has never been one for actually talking about them. He guesses that’s what they’ve always liked best about each other. Still, there’s concern in the jokes that no one else sees past. They share their own code, their own way of affection. Eponine’s eye rolling and refusal to pour him drinks, Grantaire’s insistence on crashing at her place on random nights mean so much more.

It’s why Eponine is asking him to stay over that night.

His head rings and he can’t focus – not when Enjolras has said things earlier that day that may have crossed the line, not when he feels as if he’s fucked up what weird relationship they already seemed to build up. (Enjolras had said after one particularly bad debate, being friends with my friends doesn’t automatically mean we are too.) “I should go home.” Grantaire says as he buries his face in his hands and groans.

It’s his fault, really. He’s never been one to back down from sensitive issues – issues of timers and reasons, of beliefs and skepticism and it’s only fair that Enjolras took a defensive turn. Especially when the whole thing started getting a little personal. ( _He has a timer too, R._ He reminds himself. _Just give it a fucking rest_.)

Across the counter, Eponine frowns. “No. Come on, I haven’t caught up on Game of Thrones because someone _asshole_ told me Jon Snow was alive and out of spite I was like ‘Fuck this, I’m not watching anymore because the entire thing is fucking ruined for me now’ but I just found out Cersei gets her shit together and you fucking _know_ she’s my girl.” She throws her dark hair back and ties it up. A sign. There’s something else.

He raises his eyebrow. “What are you not telling me?”

 “Parnasse got a timer this morning because he suddenly decided he wanted his aesthetic to be some mopey asshole with a blank timer or something.” Eponine rolls her eyes, proceeds act like she’s busy arranging the glasses on the counter. “And he ran into Jehan, who as we know, has been _dying_ to meet his soulmate.” Another eye roll. (Jehan, who had written poetry for a soulmate he had yet to meet, had been going on and on about how destiny was failing him.) “And _beep beep beep_! Soulmates. He didn’t even have time to get here.”

“ _’Ponine_ ,” He begins. Grantaire doesn’t know what else to say. He holds his beer up and sighs. “Fuck timers, man.”

“Are you still going on about that, dude?” A cheery voice asks behind him. He knows it’s Courfeyrac before he even turns around. “Hey, Ep.” Behind him, Combeferre waves while Enjolras looks around

“Hey, curly.” She nods, a smile replacing the previous state of frustration on her features. If there’s ever anyone who brought instant sunshine to places, it’s Courfeyrac. “If you order a Shirley Temple again tonight I’m banning you from this bar.”

“I’m _appalled_ that this bar would go far as to threaten me for enjoying my favourite drink.” He feigns dismay, his hand on his forehead as he tilts to the side dramatically before taking a seat on the stool next to Grantaire. “So? What are we talking about?”

“ _Timers_.” Eponine eyes trail towards Enjolras for a minute and looks back at Courf. Grantaire gets up. His heart beats, there are those butterflies again. (It’s just gas, he likes to tell himself.)

“Call me when your shift’s over, babe.” He says to Eponine before she can say another word. He refuses to look at Enjolras for any sort of reaction or at Combeferre, who Grantaire has always assumed doesn’t really like him. Quickly, he tips his beanie at the rest of them and ducks out before protests from Eponine or Courfeyrac arise.

It rains outside. He takes this with a chuckle, a cap to his already shitty night, the gods (god, singular maybe? The universe, the dieties, whoever is up there, if anyone actually is up there.) must be laughing at him as well. There’s a lost and found box inside that Eponine keeps that she fills with forgotten umbrellas and awful shirts (shed somehow in the middle of the dance floor, often times) but his pride keeps him in tow. He’d rather trudge through the rain rather than face anymore of Enjolras and the probable frown reserved just for Grantaire. “Fuck off!” He calls out to no one in particular.

“I just thought you’d need – “ And there he is, holding up a rainbow umbrella looking like the only thing of colour in such a dreary night. Grantaire wants to laugh at how fucking cliché it all feels. (He wants to laugh at how badly he suddenly wants to kiss Enjolras.)

“I – “ There are no words, the sound of the rain drowns it all out. He walks towards Enjolras who holds the umbrella over their heads and stares at him curiously. They’re so _close_. “I thought we weren’t friends.”

“I’m trying.” Enjolras frowns. “It was uncalled for. Sorry.”

“I can be difficult. Sorry.” Grantaire says back.

Enjolras hands Grantaire the umbrella and rolls his sleeve up to show him the still blank timer. “I got this when I was trying to figure myself out not because I wanted to know if I had a soulmate.” He sighs. Grantaire feels heavier for some reason, like he doesn’t deserve to know this, like he doesn’t deserve Enjolras’ niceties. “It was _stupid_.”

“Did you ever figure it out?” He asks. “Yourself, I mean.”

The other boy thinks about this for a moment. “You will only find what you bring in.”

Grantaire begins to laugh. He’s pretty sure he’s heard that before. “Did you just quote _Yoda_?”

“What? No?” Enjolras’ frown returns. “I saw it on a graphic online.” And of course the one thing that makes Grantaire genuinely laugh after a long time. For a second, he almost forgets the earlier events of that day.

“No, dude. I’m pretty sure it’s from Star Wars. God, you’re like one of those soccer moms who don’t check the source.”

“I _always_ check sources.” He almost looks offended.

He pats Enjolras’ arm playfully and realizes their close proximity again. “Sure.” He clears his throat. “Thanks for the umbrella. You could’ve chosen one that wasn’t so… bright though.”

“Sorry. It’s mine.” Enjolras says. “A gift from Courf.”

He chuckles again. Of course. “I’ll keep that in mind so I’ll remember to return it.”

They stand frozen under the umbrella just like that day under the willow tree. Time is faster this time, the seconds tick faster and faster as the world passes them. For once, Grantaire doesn’t mind. He understands what Enjolras had meant that day, of not taking too many breaks, of finding his own rhythm. It’s why he pulls Enjolras into his arms and hugs him tightly.

To his surprise, Enjolras melts into him and whispers, “ _Hey_ ,” Grantaire doesn’t bother asking any questions.

\---

He spends his birthday staring at fish alone in the aquarium and ignoring Eponine’s phone calls.

The calm blue keeps him in a steady daze. On a bench in the middle of it’s glass walls, Grantaire sits while he loses track of the hours. _Another break, another breath_ , he thinks. He’d like to believe he deserves it, all the rests he takes while the world passes him by. He’s tired – constantly tired from trying to keep up with everyone else. On his birthday, all he wants it to think about himself and forget.

Of course, life is funny sometimes.

Marius waves at him, still mostly of limbs and constellations on his face. Cosette holds his hand, smiling at him. They’ve become staples in his life – he draws Cosette during meetings and walks Marius back to his dorm as to not get lost, sometimes Eponine buys drinks for them and pretends, pretends, pretends her heart had not broken long ago. He knows she’s over it but the same sadness his mother once held on to is apparent in her eyes whenever she sees him – he knows she still wishes for the safety of a relationship, the touch of someone without the wrong intentions.

But who isn’t jealous of Marius and Cosette? Just looking at them makes Grantaire’s stomach drop sometimes too.

“What are you doing here?” Cosette asks, pressing a kiss against his cheek as a greeting.

“Netflix cut me off so now I’m watching the poor man’s version of shark week.” He grins. Marius looks around worriedly. “Don’t worry, they don’t have sharks here.”

“Oh.” Marius says with a laugh. “Good, good.”

“So, what are you two lovebirds doing here?” Grantaire asks, patting the space beside him for one of them to sit. Cosette obliges, leans her head on his shoulder and giggles. There is a softness to her that Grantaire loves, he understands why this girl is who Marius gets to hold at night. There is a pureness in both of them that he hadn’t understood in Marius before that he still doesn’t understand now.

“Just walking. We got our timers taken off across the street and thought we deserved something fun to do after.” She explains. “It’s been a few years and we finally got around to doing it.”

“What was it like?” Another constant question. “When you guys found each other?”

Cosette hugs him tightly from the side, squeezing him with, he’s not even trying to sound poetic, what feels like all the love in her body. “I know you don’t believe in soulmates, R but it was wonderful.” She says with a smile. “It’s nice knowing there’s someone out there for you. Like you’re not alone.”

“But you’re surrounded with other people… doesn’t the concept of someone set for you hold you back from interacting and getting to know other people?” Always doubting, always looking for flaws. “And the time… it just makes me think you’re going to end up trying to stop living your life properly.”

“No, it’s not like that.” Cosette says, she takes his hand. “It’s more like you live your life trying to be the best version of yourself because you know there’s someone out there you deserve and deserves you right back.”

“You can’t fight fate.” Marius pipes in. “It’s just more convenient to be sure.” Certainty, he thinks. Just what Floreal had once told him.

He nods at this but still doesn’t understand.

\---

Enjolras is at his doorstep that night.

He asks no questions of how and why. Instead, he pulls Enjolras closer until their faces are inches apart. They wait for each other – seconds pass but they feel like minutes, hours, years. Grantaire wants to ask, is this what it feels like to wait for someone?

But it is then that Enjolras closes the distance and finally, finally, finally, Grantaire understands.

There are no butterflies or balloons lifting him up, it isn’t as poetic as he had always assumed that feeling to be. Instead, it feels a lot like pieces of him lining up properly and it’s a sensation that he can’t explain but knows now. He doesn’t have words or questions, the thin line of beliefs and doubts blur into something else. Enjolras holds him, whispers a breathy “Happy Birthday,” before Grantaire decides that perhaps he was wrong about soulmates all along.

\---

The blank timer doesn’t settle with him still. It makes him uneasy, it makes him pace. Everyday he sees Enjolras, dread fills him because of the possibility of Enjolras’ real soulmate showing up and taking the only certain thing in life away from him. It gnaws at him slowly.

“The answer is simple,” Eponine says. They’re lying down on her couch that’s perpetually littered with popcorn kernels and spare change while a stupid (possibly racist) Mark Wahlberg movie plays. “You know I’m pretty sure the Decepticons are Republicans which is weird because I’m pretty sure Marky Mark’s one.”

Grantaire laughs at this and puts out his cigarette. “That’s the simple answer to what, exactly?”

“Oh shit, no I meant something else but seriously this fucking movie is unrealistic mostly because he doesn’t have any good vibrations with Decepticons.” She laughs at this, pleased by her own joke. “Anyway, no. I meant your timer dilemma. Just go get one if you’re so fucked over Enjolras suddenly getting someone so you can find out if it’s you or what.”

She has point but he thinks of holding her hand and asking her if it hurt, he thinks of the sadness in her eyes and the way she had refused talk about it after. Is it worth ruining an already good thing? Is certainty ever a good thing?

He goes home to a sleepy Enjolras that night, falls into his arms – a new sort of home to him now – and stays up thinking about timers and destiny. It should be worth it right? He wonders as he looks at Enjolras and twirls his curls in his fingers. It shouldn’t feel like this if it wasn’t him.

“Enjolras,” He whispers, nudging the other boy lightly. “What if I’m not your soulmate?”

Enjolras wakes up at the question and runs his fingers through Grantaire’s messy locks. He takes a moment before pressing his lips against his. Enjolras reminds him of the sea – he’s floating and floating, he wonders if he will ever get seasick. “That shouldn’t even be a question.” He says. “Because it finally feels like I’ve figured it all out.”

“Well, you _did_ bring me in more way than one.” Grantaire says, trying to ease the tension even when he feels like he can’t breathe, even when these words aren’t doing their job, even when he’s sure Enjolras deserves so much better.

“Go to sleep.”

He doesn’t sleep. He can’t. The question haunts him more than anything.

\---

He gets a timer a week later but doesn’t tell anyone. There are numbers when he gets it.

Three hours, twenty four minutes, seconds ticking, ticking, ticking.

 

When he calls Enjolras to ask, it goes straight to voicemail and he paces and paces and paces. He doesn’t take it as a good sign. Especially when Enjolras doesn’t show up at the meeting an hour later. So he runs too.

The aquarium is empty when he gets there. He takes a seat on the same bench where Cosette had told him of soulmates and destiny, of certainty, and waits.  There must be a reason, he thinks, that just when he’s finally happy life finds a way to mess it all up. He looks back at the fights, the arguments – maybe he was right all along. Fuck timers, he would constantly tell Eponine.

He says it now in his head, over and over and over like some kind of mantra.

_Fuck timers, fuck timers, fuck timers._

It beeps as soon as he hears the faint sound of footsteps. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t breathe. When he’s certain the other person is near, he closes his eyes – an irrational voice in his head telling him it can’t be real if he doesn’t see them.

The voice is soft, calming, and _familiar_. “Grantaire, open your eyes.” He doesn’t need to open his eyes to know who it is but he does so anyway.

It’s Enjolras.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> No one asked for this but I wrote it anyway. It was more of a self-indulgent thing I needed to get off my chest after watching TiMER. i might consider writing more of this universe at some point so it can all cohesively have one big ass les amis soulmate collection but we'll see. xoxo


End file.
